Friday, January 20, at 3:30 PM in NSC 221. Join us for refreshments in the Planetarium at 3:10 PM.

"Neutrino Oscillations: A Door to New Physics"

Dr. Brian Rebel, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

One of the surprising results in High Energy Physics in the last15 years was the evidence that neutrinos oscillate, or changeflavor, between their points of production and interaction. Forexample, about two thirds of the electron neutrinos produced in solarfusion reactions have been shown to change into a mixture of muon andtau neutrinos as they propagate out of the Sun. These neutrinooscillations, also observed in man-made neutrino beams and neutrinosfrom nuclear reactors, are the result of neutrinos having mass, anindication of physics requiring extensions to the Standard Model. Inthis talk I will present the current understanding of neutrinooscillations and the outstanding questions about oscillations. I willalso describe the next generation of accelerator-based experiments,NOvA and LBNE, that will attempt to answer those questions.